Wolfbiter reviews IFComp 2024 - latest: Eikas; wrap-up

today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games ft. a major character who dies (this is not a spoiler)

Deliquescence by Not-Only But-Also Riley
Playtime: 8 minutes (3 min to first ending)

The one with a: deathbed vigil

(Not tagging spoilers, it’s a very short game if you haven’t played!)

Oof. This game tackles a heavy subject—watching something bad happen to a loved one. You can offer comfort in various ways but you can’t change the outcome.

There’s a strong horror element, focusing on the visceral disturbingness of watching the human body fall apart—a “luminous being” (I’m with Yoda on this one thing) becoming a sack of malfunctioning proteins etc.:

Although, as that pull quote demonstrates, we’re maybe two ticks off from maximum body horror. There is a certain wateriness (as opposed to other bodily fluids) that makes things seem more sanitary than they might otherwise.

There’s also some, err, societal horror beats:

The game is bleak but not in a way that I found soul-destroying, if that makes sense. Your friend seems to have reached a point of grace, and your efforts will let you be present for her in a way that seems to be what she’s asking for.

Nor did the topic feel gratuitous, it felt like it’s reflecting an essential truth: On the day my ticket gets punched I doubt it will be precisely this scenario, but decent odds it will be unpleasant, disgusting, and lonelier than I’d like (quick, where’s the “tell a joke” option? I need to bring up the mood of this review).

As others have noted, good design choice to contrast the length of the available options with the futility of the set-up (sure, you can make conversation on ten different topics, but it’s not going to change the endpoint). I noticed that at least some of the options have multiple possible responses. I will also say there is a lot I didn’t try / wouldn’t want to try—at least for me, “friend’s last 3 minutes” is a scenario where I’m not going to be trying things just to see what happens and there’s a somewhat narrow range of things I want to do. So in that sense the author’s effort in writing responses to a lot of options wasn’t seen by me.

Front matter
Could better set the table for the game Successfully sets the table for the game Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS

Big fan of the title.

Overall, this was definitely an experience–a bite to chew and try to swallow despite the bitterness—and it stirred some thinking. That said it felt a bit short/stubby as an experience and wasn’t quite a “game."

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